Looks like they are already backed so might get it sooner rather than later.

Mon Aug 19, 2013 8:21 pm

seanet1310

Joined: 08 Nov 2006
Posts: 1265
Location: Adelaide

in my experence, kickstarter is almost always 50% longer time frames so would not hold my breath. Almost went the tilt but cheeped out, figured I could just build one if I need to._________________Remember to trust me, I am an Engineer.

And I did made setups that can use unregulated CO2 pressure.
Even tested Tough as Nails actively with nitrogen @130 bar.

Wed May 28, 2014 12:04 am

Shakey

Joined: 29 Jun 2014
Posts: 2

So this is actually something I had been looking at doing myself in relation to my uni work (Robotics Student).

The basic plan would be a Kinect sensor. Using the 3D abilities I can map the arena and work out the 'edges' and when the pit opens plus where it is and the position of my bot. This ties in with the images being used to help work out the position and orientation of my bot vs theirs. This is fed into a small powerful PC and then fed into a wifi connected Arduino. The Kinects camera would be used like the awesome looking Pixy sensor that came up.

In the robot I'd have a gyro and a small suite of other sensors that may prove useful. These will be used as a more accurate positioning and orientation gathering of the robot. It will also enable me to tell in a collision who got under who, this is important in deciding if the robots next move is offensive and defensive.

Now here comes the twist: I don't actually teach it how to fight. I tell it what it should do and a couple of extras (Like stay in the arena, stay away from the pit). Give it a base genetic algorithm and continually fight it over and over again. I take it to events and leave it in an arena and encourage people to randomly fight it. Over time it will build up a fighting style that works for itself. The only nudge I intend on giving it every battle is what weapon it is facing and telling it when to start (and stop in the case of a match overunning time).

I would also keep a manual override aswell in case it is completely going crazy in a match I can grab the keyboard and take over. The aim will be to have a robot that I never have to intervene over.

I'd start with a basic pusher just to teach it mobility and act as a proof of concept, then maybe progress to a flipper. One thing that I'd like to end up at is a grabber but that is much harder from teaching its point of view.

This system means that I never have to alter the competitors robot, it purely needs a kinect sensor as an extra (As a bonus the kinect can video the event nicely ).

EDIT: Forogt to mention that the positioning of the robot can be aided with heavy use of 'identifiying' features, whether they be fast LED flashers at different rates around the robot or just visual cues for the camera to pick up on.